Padgett Stratemann is now RMSAs San Antonio becomes a bigger player in Texas Business, more national firms are entering this market. A national firm does not start from zero. RMS (http://rsmus.com/) purchased Padgett. This gives the buyer a large client base to start with. Typically the local partners have made a handsome profit on their time at the firm. But seeking to recoup the investment, the buyer typically raises fees knowing some business will be lost. RMS has re located from North Loop 410 to 1604 and 281. Renee Foshee, a tax expert with the firm, is the current SA CPA Society President.

Turner Cleveland PCTerry Cleveland has addressed our students. Two of our graduates are employed with at this firm.

Ridout Barrett CPAsTony Ridout has visited and addressed our students many times. We have placed graduates with Ridout for several years.

Financial Consulting Firms

Aventine Hill Partners, Inc.Beth Hair CEO founded Aventine in San Antonio in 2009. The firm now has offices in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. She formerly was with RGP.

Resource Global ProfessionalsSusan Hough has been to campus and spoken to our students. She is the San Antonio Manager of RGP. RGP and Aventine are not CPA firms. Instead they offer contract specialists for firms needing specific tasks such as compliance or Controllerships.

Accounting Information

Acounting Today This is an independent site for accounting news regarding firms and current issues.

Accounting Certifications

Certified Information Systems Auditor CISANow that everything is literally on the computer and cyber security becomes a prominent issue, I see more and more accounting professionals with this designation. Previously known as the Information Systems and Audit Control Association, it now goes by the acronym ISACA.

Geo Politics

Institute for the Study of WarThe Institute for the Study of War advances an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education. We are committed to improving the nation’s ability to execute military operations and respond to emerging threats in order to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization.

StratforThis Austin, TX based site was begun by an ex Texas State Professor.

By Alan Hall, senior analyst at the Socionomics Institute

Why in the world would Major League Baseball home run statistics track the U.S. stock market?

It's tempting to dismiss such a finding as a wild coincidence or a fluke, but as you can see in the chart, the relationship between the two has persisted for nearly 150 years. What's more, it gets even stronger if you add strikeouts into the mix. Most hitters and pitchers don't check stock tickers before swinging and flinging, and most stock investors don't check baseball stats before buying and selling. So what's the connection? The simplest explanation is that society's overall mood influences performance in both arenas.

For example, on Friday, June 2 of this year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new all-time high for the first time in three months. The next day, confidence wafted on the breeze, along with the aromas of hot dogs and popcorn, as Seattle Mariners catcher Mike Zunino stepped up to the plate and gracefully swatted a "mammoth" grand slam. Zunino later told the Associated Press: "It's just nice to step in the box and feel like you can hit."

Feeling "like you can hit" was "l'esprit du jour" in ballparks that Saturday. Six other MLB players also belted grand slams. Zunino's was the seventh, a new single-day record. "It's officially the grandest day in Major League Baseball history," wrote MLB.com.

That record-setting Saturday was part of a record-setting month in a record-setting year for Major League Baseball, mirroring the Dow Jones Industrial Average's record-setting streak to numerous all-time highs. In June, players hit more home runs than in any previous month in history. And on September 19, hitters broke the record for home runs hit in a single season.

The previous single-day grand slam and single-month home run records were set in May 2000, the year of the previous record high for single-season home runs -- and a year in which the stock market also set an all-time high.

Home runs weren't the only records set in baseball this year. Pitchers also threw more "immaculate innings" (striking out a side on nine consecutive pitches) than ever before. The New Yorker wrote, "it's true that the increased tendency to swing for home runs comes with an additional likelihood that one will miss: Strikeouts have also spiked to record rates."

Our chart plots 147 years of social mood as reflected by a PPI-adjusted index of U.S. stocks versus two indicators of baseball performance. The bottom line plots average home runs per MLB game. Homers have trended roughly parallel to the Dow/PPI, but the relationship is not perfect. Notable divergences surround some of the major peaks and troughs.

The middle line in the chart plots average home runs plus strikeouts per game, a new baseball metric which I dubbed the "Swing for the Fences" indicator, or SWAT -- not an exact acronym, but it's catchy and close enough. This performance index has had an even tighter relationship with the Dow/PPI, especially since the 1940s. Today, stocks, SWAT and average home runs per game are at new all-time highs.

Just as the fever for investing peaks and subsides, so do fans' attitudes toward baseball. Sports Illustrated and others have recently argued that the current deluge of home runs and strikeouts is a problem because it makes for a longer, boring game. One can almost hear the passion fading and the psychology shifting.

Robert Prechter's socionomic theory sees stock market indexes as more than just financial indicators. They are also indicators of changes in society's optimism and pessimism, our social mood. Positive mood produces optimism, confidence and stock market advances. Negative mood produces pessimism, fear and stock market declines. The same seems to be true for baseball performance.

Sabermetrics has come a long way in the past four decades, but stats that measure batter confidence and psychology have remained elusive. Perhaps part of the answer has been right under our noses, in the ups and downs of the stock market.

You Can Get Ahead of Fast-Moving News with

The Thinking Person's Membership

Imagine scrolling through the latest news stories, nodding and saying, "THAT makes sense." And "THAT is right on time." That is what Socionomics Members get every month. The same events that disrupt most people are confirmation to them. You can join them.

Humans are being eliminated from entering multiple clicks transferring data from one program to another.

Artificial Intelligence is gaining acceptance. A finance exec in India remarks that because of robotization, finance jobs will evolve quickly.

Let me put that in plain college speak.

If we can automate data entry, forecasting, or data mining, we will.

In class I emphasize the importance of obtaining advanced certifications. If the lower level jobs are going to be displaced by robots, and they are, this means obtaining an advanced certification is more important than ever.

Felipe's is a small Mexican Food restaurant in a strip mall in Palm Springs. It was begun by two Hispanic brothers in law whose only real experience was as waiters. Does this sound familiar, gee how many of these do you suppose are in San Antonio? There are so many the Express news is running a series called 365 DAys of Tacos, knowing they will never run out or restaurants to discuss.

This is precisely the kind of story I have been alluding to in class. You never know if you would want to start a business or you might HAVE to start a business. The article mentions the necessity of making money from the get go, no rich relatives to lean on. And on the second page, the lack of administrative expertise was solved by hiring a local accounting firm. Great idea!

The article mentions paying required payroll and sales taxes which is certainly important. It does not mention having the CPAs help with break even calculations, to my thinking that would be crucial.

But as I say we try to make students aware of the necessity of doing this. Otherwise the firm is sailing the boat without a map!

October 18, 2017

Check ou the graph on the back page of Section Two of today's WSJ. Spencer Jakab shows how each ten year slice of DJIA history ended badly in its

7th year, as in 1987. The glaring exception is this year. Bob Prechter has mapped out an elaborate Fibonacci metric suggesting the market has completed multiple Elliott Wave Patterns, we should be looking for a top. At Insiide Track, Eric Hadik concludes the markets are at a Gann time and price conjunction worthy of a top.

Yet the markets keep on chugging along. Even articles in the WSJ admit the market is over priced.

I have been preparing a talk for the annual San Antonio CPA Continuing Education day. I will present examples of how understanding social mood can help predict accounting regulation or the failure to pass GAAP IFRS convergence . I will also show how a socionomic analysis of political mood would have warned John Stumpf at WFC he was walking into his demise before Congress claiming responsibility but not accountability

I am always looking for some image to demonstrate the power of linking social mood to social action. And this week I spotted one.

A New York restaurant is offering a $24 cup of coffee.A pound of the raw beans runs to the hundreds of dollars. A California coffee shop raises the ante to $55!. What does this tell us? There are at least two messages here. The buyer is feeling expansive and more than willing to indulge in a personal perk. And the second, is that apparently, the buyer is confident that the money will continue to stream in to finance such a purchase. Notice the elaborate contraption used table side to prepare the uber priced treat.

Bugatti is marketing a car for over $2 million. The WSJ continues its Mansion Real Estate section on Fridays. Now the Starbucks $4 latte has been taken to new levels.

Such behavior is common in frothy markets. During the last tech boom in Austin, $12 glass of wine with lunch was common, In the late stages of the 1970s oil boom in West Texas one company began using Cadillacs as company cars. In her book on Enron, Mimi Swartz noted that the presence of too many exotic sports cars in the company parking garage was a danger signal.

I give up on attempting to call a top here. And it may be that Trump's roll back of regulations and promise of tax cuts, along with higher interest rates is sparking new confidence in the economy. Emerging markets are higher world wide.

October 17, 2017

Deflation Basics Series: The Quantity Theory of Money

By Elliott Wave International

Here's our challenge.

In order to be aware of the investment pitfalls and opportunities that deflation can bring, we must first understand the basic elements of why it occurs. So our challenge is to try and make monetary economics, a subject that most people would find duller than watching paint dry on a wall, understandable and, dare I say it, fun! It's a big ask but we like a test, and so here is the first in our Deflation Basics Series -- The Quantity Theory of Money.

The Quantity Theory of Money (QTM for short) is the very essence of the true definition of inflation and deflation. You see, most people think of inflation and deflation as the rise and fall or prices when it is actually all about the rise and fall of the quantity of money.

The QTM has its origins in the 16th century and the writings of the Prussian polymath Nicolaus Copernicus as well as followers of the School of Salamanca such as Martín de Azpilcueta. As European nations looted the Americas for gold and silver, an increase in the price of goods in general was noted as the metals were brought back to the Old World. This observation, via the writings of, among others, John Locke, David Hume, John Stuart Mill and Ludwig von Mises, led to a link between the quantity of money in an economy and the level of the price of goods.

QTM is the cornerstone of monetarist economics which was largely developed by Milton Friedman, gaining popularity during the 1970s. Put simply, the Quantity Theory of Money can be expressed as the "Equation of Exchange":

In plain speak, the amount of money in an economy multiplied by the number of times that money is used, equals the price of stuff bought multiplied by the amount of stuff bought.

Let's take a simple example.

If an economy has $1,000 in total and that money is turned over 3 times during a month, total spending equals $3,000 that month. If the amount of stuff bought was 100 items, then the average price of each item would be $3,000 divided by 100 which equals $30.

We can re-arrange the Equation of Exchange to solve for the price level, P:

Therefore, in our economy:

Now let's assume that, the next month, money supply increases from $1,000 to $2,000, with the velocity of money and the amount of stuff bought staying the same. What would be the effect on the average price level?

The average price level has gone up from $30 to $60. The average price of goods has gone up due to the inflation of the money supply.

The next month, the money supply decreases from $2,000 to $500, with the velocity of money and the amount of stuff bought staying the same. What would be the effect on the average price level now?

The average price level has gone down from $60 to $15. The average price of goods has gone down due to the deflation of the money supply.

This basic example shows the relationship between the level of the money supply in an economy and the average level of prices. The catch comes, of course, with the old economics chestnut, the Latin phrase ceteris paribus (all other things being equal). In the ivory towers of academic economics all other things can remain equal, but in the real world, they don't.

So our assumptions in the example above that the velocity of money remained at 3 and that the amount of stuff bought remained at 100 would have to be challenged. In fact, one of the main criticisms of the QTM is that the velocity of money does not remain constant and changes due to the vagaries of spending impulses. However, if money supply didn't change but the velocity of money went down instead, the effect is the same -- lower prices (assuming the amount of stuff bought remained the same that is!).

Monetarists in the 1980s thought that, by targeting money supply growth, the level of goods and service prices in an economy could be controlled. However, although there is a link between the general level of prices in an economy and the amount of money, it is not rigid, and prices can move up and down for a myriad of reasons.

Nevertheless, the general relationship in the Quantity Theory of Money stands. More money in an economy (inflation) tends to lead to higher prices and less money (deflation) tends to lead to lower prices.

What You Need to Know NOW About Protecting Yourself from Deflation

The best way to protect yourself from deflation is to first understand what it is. In this free, special report, you'll learn about this unexpected risk and what it can do to your portfolio. You'll also get 29 specific forecasts for stocks, real estate, gold and new cultural trends, to help you prepare and protect your wealth.

Your Bond Fund: It's Riskier Than You Think

Quantitative Easing (QE) changed the bond markets in ways many don't realize. And now that QE is unwinding, investing in bonds comes with pitfalls that are too risky to overlook. This new resource from EWI's Murray Gunn offers insights you don't want to miss. Get your free report, Your Bond Fund: It's Riskier Than You Think.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Deflation Basics Series: The Quantity Theory of Money. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.